media relations

The important key points to take away from this reading would be:
1) the growing interdependence in the media and the public relations profession
2) the incorporation of the technical aspect and manager's role in the pubic relation's profession

1)

"With this contraction of daily print media has arisen a reliance on syndicated work, press agencies and news subsidies- material generated by organisations and channelled through public relations practitioner [...] Habermas noted how the demands of the press enhanced the growth of the public relations industry (1989)."

This quote shows how the media is rather reliant on the public relations industry for information from organisations. However, it was also noted that the public relations was reliant on the media industry thus making it a two-way relationship. The public relations also find thesmelves needing to gauge public opinion and moniter trends from the news media. Media stories that affect their organisation would require the public relations industry to act upon it immediately and perhaps go ahead with the backup plan if things were not progressing smoothly as reported on the news media.


2) Chapter 10 reiterates what I said in Chapter 7 about how social skills are only a portion of what a public relations practitioner requires. As a public relations practitioner, knowing how to write a good media release would be a bonus as the journalist would not be able to change much of what has been sent before publishing it in the papers the following day. It is important to produce a media release that would interest the journalist or else it might go unnoticed. Also, Chapter 10 covers the importance of holding a media conference and provides information on how to go about holding one while taking into considerations.

The theory of how to go about holding a media conference in this chapter is of great importance as a media conference would be open to scrutiny from the media itself. It would be important that the planning of a media conference is done well to prevent any loss of reputation in the midst of conducting one. The media conference would certainly allow wide dissemination of important information such as the release of products from an organisation. As such, this chapter has been useful in preparation for practice as a public relations practitioner.

strategy

I think one of the key points to remember from the reading of Chapter 7's "Strategy, Planning and Scheduling" is the importance of having a strategy. This strategy is of great importance not only to the public relations practitioner alone but to the entire company.

"Strategy is a pattern or plan that integrates an organisation's major goals, policies and action sequences into a cohesive whole."

As it has been mentioned that most companies do not fully comprehend the role of the public relations practitioner, it is thus the responsibility of the public relations practitioner to ensure that the mission statement is carried out. The success of the mission statement can only occur when the organisation agrees to this vision, "knows where it is going and how to get there". As such, the public relations practitioner can then go ahead with the strategic planning. It is also worth noticing that "the results of public relations work can be intangible in nature and are not often repeated on a regular basis" thus it is difficult to "treat them statistically" and should be "measured using qualitative methodologies".

Another key point would be the importance of planning the organisation's budget as a public relations practitioner. It can be seen how budgeting is of crucial from the start of the year as organisations need to have estimated financial budgets, operating budgets, administrative costs, program costs, overheads and profits.

"A budget is a plan for coordinating rescources and expenses over a period of time by assigning costs (either estimates or actual costs) to goals and objectives for specific activities."

From this definition, we can thus see how planning is the second step after having a strategy for the organisation. The planning of expenses would certainly help in ensuring that there will not be fair allocation and that nothing will be left unaccounted for.

The last important key point would be the usage of lists, flowcharts and calendars in scheduling. The flowchart helps in assisting the public relations practitioner when things do not go as expected. The flowchart will serve as a backup plan. Lists help a public relations practitioner keep in check of the things to do. Anything (such as preparation for media conferences) left out may be detrimental to the reputation of the organisation.

This reading has shown me how the public relations practice requires so much more than social skills. I have come to realise that very often, we need to do a lot of organising and planning. The strategy (vision and mission statement) would be the first and most important step in helping the organisation succeed. As such, being able to communicate with all the departments of an organisation is crucial.

Chapter 1-3

This week's readings cover Part 1 of 'Public Relations: Theory and Practice'. This set of assigned readings are crucial as an introduction to the module of Public Relations. Chapter 1 defines what is Public Relations (although it should be mentioned how hard it is to acknowledge a single definition).

McElreath described it as 'a management function that uses communications to facilitate relationships and understanding between an organisation and its publics'.

An important key point of Chapter 1 would be understanding the two primary roles of public relations practitioners: technicians and problem-solvers. Technicians produces services such as producing publications (e.g news releases and newsletters). Problem-solvers ask clients or senior management to rethink or clarify problems and to look for solutions. Technicians hold lower positions within organisations than problem-solvers although one public relations practitioners may perform both roles.

Chapter 1 has opened my eyes to the differences between advertising and public relations. I used to mistaken public relations' job scope to be that of advertising. However, as it can be can read from Chapter 1, advertising is the buying of space to transmit a message to an audience. On the other hand, public relations practitioner's publicity is 'free' however the practitioner has no control over the publicity. Media releases that are sent from the technicians may be tweaked by the journalist before being published in the newspapers. As such, the message being transmitted is uncontrolled.

Chapter 2 provided me with background information of the emergence of public relations from the 1840s. This chapter did not leave me much to think about as it was more of an information feed. Such information may not be extremely useful however it is good to have some background knowledge of the emergence of public relations.

Chapter 3 covers the different theoretical approaches to public relations. Semiotics was one of which I remember learning in the previous trimester under the module of Introduction to Communication Studies. This chapter is certainly important as we come to realise the usefulness in application of such theoretical approaches in public relations.